Kleinpeter Farms Dairy has spent the last year trying to rebuild the brand loyalty and market share it lost in 2014, Business Report details in a feature from its latest issue.
In that year, mounting quality control issues affected the taste and shelf life of its milk, causing a crisis at the family-owned company unlike any it had weathered in its century-long existence.
Since then, the dairy has invested more than $3 million replacing and upgrading aging equipment at its Airline Highway processing plant. It has brought in a new management team and stepped up employee training. It has become leaner and more efficient.
It has also leased a fleet of new, bright, white delivery trucks, emblazoned with the black spots of a Holstein cow. The 28-unit fleet, another hefty investment costing more than $1 million, is the most outwardly visible manifestation of a thorough internal overhaul that has affected every aspect of the dairy’s operations.
But while Kleinpeter may have a fresh new face, the hardest part of its makeover in some ways is just beginning.
“Our biggest challenge is regaining the trust of our customers,” says Sue Anne Kleinpeter Cox, the company’s president and CEO. “That is what we’re focusing on—being there with a good, quality product, consistently.”
The investments of the past year have been substantial, totaling well more than $4 million.
Along with new, better equipment has come new processes and procedures, which have greatly increased the efficiency of the plant. Kleinpeter is now able to produce more milk than before in less time using fewer people.
Now that Kleinpeter has addressed its problems and is investing in its future, the dairy is ready to recapture its lost market share and then expand it. Cox estimates some 80% of the business the company lost in 2014 and early 2015 has returned. But not all the customers have come back, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge lunch program among them.
Kenny Kleinpeter, vice president of sales and marketing, says the dairy will be prepared to bid competitively for the diocesan account when it comes up in a few months. In the meantime, the company is going after other clients and also more shelf space in supermarket refrigerator cases.
Read the full feature to find out more about the changes implemented at Kleinpeter Farms after numerous quality control issues in 2014. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
